Bible Strands
Mark 7:22
greed, wickedness, deceit, debauchery, envy, slander, arrogance, and foolishness.
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Jesus addresses a crowd and His disciples to conclude His teaching on ritual purity, identifying the internal origins of moral corruption. He lists specific vices that emerge from the human heart rather than external sources.
The words — πλεονεξίαι (pleonexiai) denotes covetous desires, while βλασφημία (blasphēmia) denotes slander. These terms anchor the verse’s catalog of heart-born sins in concrete human behaviors.
The thread — The catalog of internal corruption parallels Matthew 20:15’s warning against envy, Ecclesiastes 7:25’s examination of foolishness, and Obadiah 1:3’s description of pride’s deception. Scripture consistently traces moral failure to internal dispositions before external action.
Why it lands — The text demands a reader to stop blaming external circumstances for sin and instead examine the heart as the source of defilement. It requires honest acknowledgment that moral failure originates within before it manifests outwardly.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Greek words
King James Version
Thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness:
Cross-references
- Matthew 20:15 Do I not have the right to do as I please with what is mine? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
- Ecclesiastes 7:25 I directed my mind to understand, to explore, to search out wisdom and explanations, and to understand the stupidity of wickedness and the folly of madness.
- Obadiah 1:3 The pride of your heart has deceived you, O dwellers in the clefts of the rocks whose habitation is the heights, who say in your heart, ‘Who can bring me down to the ground?’
- Matthew 6:23 But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
- 2 Corinthians 10:5 We demolish arguments and every presumption set up against the knowledge of God; and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
- 1 Peter 2:15 For it is God’s will that by doing good you should silence the ignorance of foolish men.
- 1 Peter 5:5 Young men, in the same way, submit yourselves to your elders. And all of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.”
- Deuteronomy 15:9 Be careful not to harbor this wicked thought in your heart: “The seventh year, the year of release, is near,” so that you look upon your poor brother begrudgingly and give him nothing. He will cry out to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.
- Deuteronomy 28:54 The most gentle and refined man among you will begrudge his brother, the wife he embraces, and the rest of his children who have survived,
- Deuteronomy 28:56 The most gentle and refined woman among you, so gentle and refined she would not venture to set the sole of her foot on the ground, will begrudge the husband she embraces and her son and daughter